NAME AND STRUCTURE
Wilhelm translates Sui as Following. Blofeld translates it as Following, According With. In this book I adopt Following, which also carries the meaning of accompanying amiably.
Sequence of the Gu: When one is humble and full of delight, surely people will come to follow. Thus, after Delight comes Following.
The ideograph of the name of this gua is a beautiful picture consisting of three parts. On the left, there is an ancient ideograph of walking. At the top of it there are three strokes curling upward, representing three footprints. Underneath the footprints is an ideograph of the word stop, zhi. In the middle of the ideograph are three pennants with a tassel at the top of a pole, representing the standard of a king. On the right, a guard holds a weapon above his head, with one foot touching the ground and the other foot about to land—he is following the pennants. This is a picture of the procession of a commander-in-chief with guards accompanying and following. The structure of the gua is Lake above, Thunder below. The attribute of Lake is joy and of Thunder is movement. Thus, Following is moving forward with joy, or following. How can one influence people to follow?
The structure of the gua is Lake over Thunder. Two yang elements underneath a yin element form the image of Lake. One yang element underneath two yin elements forms the image of Thunder. In both cases the yang are underneath the yin elements. Moreover, Lake represents the youngest daughter, and Thunder represents the eldest son. Lake over Thunder symbolizes that the elder complies with the younger. It demonstrates that the strong allows himself to follow the weak. Only by behaving humbly can one attract others to follow. If one wants to lead, one must first learn to be led. In this way, there will be progress and success. When the solid line at the second place of exhausting (47) descends to the lowest place, and when the solid line at the uppermost place of eradicating (21) descends to the fifth place, they each become Following. In other words, when the firm element descends to a place underneath the yielding, it represents Following.
This gua is very special, for it possesses the four virtues, as do the first and the second gua: yuan, heng, li, zhen. In ancient times, there was a noble woman who was offered marriage by a lord. She called in an augur to consult the I Ching. After manipulating the yarrow stalks, she obtained this gua. The augur said, “Congratulations. Sui is following. It possesses the four great virtues of yuan, heng, li, and zhen, as do Initiating (#1) and Responding (#2). It is extremely auspicious for you to follow your husband and be married.” Nevertheless, the woman said, “I have none of those four virtues. My situation is not compatible with the gua.” She preferred to wait for another opportunity. The lady’s decision exemplifies the way one should use the I Ching. It is not simply a matter of blindly following the oracle, but rather of understanding one’s place within the situation.
This is my Lunar New Year’s Cast using coins. It is both for my own personal year and the year in general, so make of it what you will. It is very positive. Interestingly, #17 is the inverse, trigram-wise, of the one just published based on the time of the New Moon in Beijing earlier today, which is the official New Year for that city. Here we have Thunder Below, Lake Above which is regarded as highly favorable whereas with #54 it is the reverse, Thunder Above, Lake Below which is traditionally very unfavorable, indicating inappropriate relationships, or usurpers on the throne.
There are no changing lines in this cast, meaning there are no major complications or conflicts. The next hexagram in the sequence, #18, is put in as the Derived Hexagram in order to calculate the Past and Future Influence using the binary mathematical values, but it also gives a little more context to the Primary. This is not the case with every pairing, but here #18 comes from every single line in #17 changing. So one could say that by going along with the favorable dynamic in #17 it will cure all ills naturally.
Interestingly, the Past Influence is #1 The Creative, Double Heaven which is associated with the Dragon. So this means that the fact it is a Dragon Year will loom large for us all. Following is unusual in that in the traditional texts it is one of only a very few Hexagrams which involve all four major virtues (which don’t translate well).
Heaven is Double Joy and Earth is Double Thunder echoing #17’s Lake-Joy above and Thunder-Shock below. Double Lake Heaven makes it a good time to enjoy the company of friends and family, or spiritual conferences. It is a happy, easy time generally. Future Influence indicates that Discipline is needed to prevent over-indulgence.
Now maybe this Cast is just for me personally. I have kept the commentary minimal so that those with experience of the Yi can reference the Hexagrams and make their own interpretation, though of course you might well prefer to simply do your own!
I am planning a visit with family and friends this summer, something I only rarely do, so with the Joyful Heaven and generally positive #17 I’ll take that as a positive augury.
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